Ix-nay the PDA

As I sit typing this outside the library in order to steal the wi-fi, there’s some Eurotrash backpacking couple a few metres away who have so far spent the entire afternoon sucking, rucking and no doubt eventually fucking. I write this not because I’m some pervy voyeur who gets off on this sort of thing, (lame joke alert: I get off … at Central Station! Boom boom) but I’ve never seen the point of going all out with physical affection in public. Yes, the “PDAs”, as I believe the kids call it.

I think mainly this comes from I’m not one to brag about any suitors or amoureux – yes, here revealed is my gentlemanly nature when it comes to relationships, as in, “never kiss and tell”, unlike so many of my peers who would say “conquests” (seriously? Did you wage a war or climb Mount Everest? For somebody to call someone they’ve bedded a “conquest” implies that that the “bed-or” is a sex-crazed loon and the “bed-ee” was previously held in high regard for not giving in to the urges of said wastrel, but now
So many things about couples shit me.

And yes, I’m single. Hello ladies!

But it’s not out of jealousy. Far from it. The main thing that annoys me as the fervant walker and obligatory pedestrian I am is when they get in my way, what with their slowed-down, hand-holding and body-groping walking two-abreast. I’m not jealous of the fact they’ve both found somebody who’ll put up with them. I’m annoyed because they’re in my way and they’ve destroyed the beauty and grace of walking single file.

Not to mention how sad it looks when people can’t help pawing and pouring over each other like they’ve just discovered a carbon-based biped for the first time. I believe these are the “PDAs” (Public Displays of Affection, or Pretty Dull and Asinine) that the kids speak of. One of the funniest things that happened in the entire time I spent living (or rather existing) in Rockhampton was when my mate John and I were taking a postprandial stroll down the main street and some couple in front of us decided to slow us down and start grabbing for each other on the footpath. Cue John without thinking blurting out louder than was probably polite but definitely necessary: “Get your hand out of her arse, you dirty old bastard!”

It worked.

An admission: if I’m fortunate enough to be involved with someone, and I want to “sample the goods” as these tactile exhibitionists would say, I do it at home. Or somewhere a bit more private than outside the well-lit front of Brisbane Square Library or indeed outside the State Library as a friend mentioned they’d seen happen. Have they no respect for books?!

I believe I’m more subdued when it comes to these “displays” because it’s in my nature to. I can’t recall the exact placement but there’s a rather telling planetary arrangement in my natal chart that relates to relationships and that is a perfect example of my gentlemanly ways: Does Not Kiss and Tell – take note, Mr Murdoch, should I ever have the unfortunate derring-do to be involved in some sex scandal. I’m not a grass. I shall not squeal. Hey, relationships for me are like Fight Club, and we all know the number one rule of Fight Club is to – oops.
But I digress, what’s the deal with all these lame-arsed exagerations of kissing and touching that should have been left behind the bike sheds of school? It’s like all the times I’m casually perusing my Facebook feed and somebody shares (sharing ain’t caring for me in this case) one of those sickening and simpering pictures of a bunch of flowers or some blurred picture of a couple AGAIN GOING THE GROPE, and over the top is some pathetic text like: You know he loves you when he hugs you from behind.

Excuse me?

There’s another bugbear for all you sweethearts and honeybunches out there – isn’t the act of hugging from behind, indeed, holding on to and not releasing somebody from behind some horribly domesticised form of ownership? It’s basically saying that women are still chattels. Sorry, not sorry. I’d put money on the next step in that little scenario being DV and an AVO.

I’m not a prude. Nor am I repressed – indeed, you’ll never have any idea how sexually expressive you can be until you read both Henry Miller and Erica Jong (I know, I know) at the same time and there’s nobody to “lend a hand”, as it were.

There’s a time and place for going the grope, the thoughful thump and demonstrable desire – just don’t do it in front of me. Not because I think it’s shameful (indeed, I lurve nothing more than a bit of expressive exploration with someone who wants to extol the virtues of moi), but I don’t show it off. Otherwise you give me full permission to film it and sell it to one of those hokey websites that get off, but better yet PAY to have vision of any couple getting it on. Amateurswithoutborders.com or Imorataswithoutinhibitions.org.

By the way, the Eurotrash have finally left – I turned round and applauded and asked if the show was over but they pulled the old “Non-Inglese” card.

Cheeky.

Pop culture & the MSM and an afterthought on Michael Douglas

Why no irreverent study of popular culture in the mainstream Australian media? The best we ever had was the ABC’s Mondo Thingo, presented by the awesome Amanda Keller – from Clive James chatting away about celebrities without his usual loquacious loftiness to the emergence of flashmobs (apparently around since 2004 – I know, right?). It was easy to understand, entertaining and most of all fun. Who else knew little of the thrill of Eurovision or the stereotype-come-to-life of Ebonics until Mondo Thingo?

So what do we have now? Only intentionally serious and unintentionally boring reports on the evening news where the “latest” fads and crazes have already hit the limelight; features in weekend supplements that cater to a female audience that largely doesn’t exist either – yes I’m a male, but the “Yummy Mummy” tag is ridiculous because it implies that mothers have to be soft and stupid – my mum (known as “The Glacial One” – which I love as nickname despite at first deriding it with Paul Keating‘s “All tip and no iceberg” quip) isn’t, and neither are any other mothers I know. At least there’s Fairfax’s The Tribal Mind blog which gets a nice little strap at the end of the opinion pages every Sunday, but it sometimes tends to be more academic than needed.

The only real yet fun, irrelevant but also learned study of popular culture now is of course from blogs and social media. When’s the day going to come when bloggers are readily paid – properly – for what their writing is worth, without having to let an MSM site steal their words for a bit exposure or take advertising? Take the Courier-Mail as an example – they’ll happily publish a glib tweet from a nobody to fill space, but is that nobody getting a quid for it? And not to mention around the edges of the letters page there’s handpicked tweets from “celebrities” – either politicians, athletes nobody knows or cares of or talent-show plebs who rate even less. They’ve even quoted “models”, FFS!

There’s been many blogs and social media users from Australia and around the world that have gained prominence for their take on aspects of modern culture – some have been able to use this success to get books published, like Stuff White People Like and others have inspired television series, like Shit My Dad Says (much like the old schoolyard threat of “My dad could bash your dad”, my Dad could give his a run for his money).

DAD: … and she had all this thick gold rubbish and trinkets hanging off her, like Sammy Davis, Jr. What’s that called?

ME: Bling?

DAD: Ah, yes … “bling”.

So why doesn’t the press directly source (and pay) from blogs, instead of the usual “blogs” hosted on their websites that are nothing more than opinion columns for less pay – Sam de Brito‘s All Men Are Liars, John Birmingham‘s Blunt Instrument – even Katharine Feeney’s Citykat (and what a ripper euphemism that could be with the right dirty mind).

Yes, I’ve only been blogging here for a fortnight as a way to hone my own writing and hopefully use it to get published, a portfolio of sorts, but I’m writing this piece not just for me, but for all the bloggers out there who entertain, provoke and inspire thought: I’ll admit Bob Ellis has pretty much burnt his bridges with nearly every paper in the country before his blog Table Talk, but what about Heathen Scripture? If blogs are now as “free” as media gets (no Rupert Murdoch, or as he’s known in my family, Elliot Carver types looking over shoulders) – then why doesn’t the media start publishing the works of bloggers more often instead of the usual coterie of repetitious middle-class opinion writers – how many columns have you read in the last week that riff on themes of either the same shrill opposition to any government policy without a second thought or about how “happy” (read: boring) family life is?

Hey Courier-Mail, if I have to read yet another column in tomorrow’s edition from a middle-aged fart writing about domesticity, I shall set myself on fire in your office – consider it a scoop. And on the C-M, nothing they’ve done has outraged me more than when the PM gave her awesome fifteen minute defense to the misogynistic attacks of the Opposition in Question Time last year, which set social media on fire and was viewed by millions around the world, a mere three paragraph report buried behind the front pages and even the “celebrity” pages. I think I was actually “unfriended” (the end of any friendship in modern etiquette is via Facebook) by someone who works for them – I’d love to know if it was because they thought I just posted crap (I couldn’t care less) or because I slagged off their editor; another instance of the mainstream media unable to handle the real world?

Wake up and shake up!

PS – I’ve just seen in The Guardian that Michael Douglas’s throat cancer was apparently caused by oral sex. Eew! Who would want Michael Douglas lapping at their laps, despite what the great Big Girl’s Blouse had to say on the subject: